The Bummer of Being a "Yes Man"

When we lived in China and taught at XiKeDa (Southwest University of Science and Technology), I was always unbelievably busy, and I was always complaining about it. We were supposed to be living the glamourous expat life but it was far from that; I could barely squeeze in time for a grocery trip, and while we managed to get some great traveling in on the long semester breaks, the weekend trips to local places that we envisioned never materialized. In fact, in a year and a half of living in Mianyang, we took one long weekend trip to Xi'an and...well...that was pretty much it. Countless times I stayed up into the wee hours reading papers, feeling that hopeless stress of knowing that there is NO WAT everything is going to get done in time. Not for the first time in my life, I felt beleaguered, bereft of personal time; my schedule, between teaching classes and prep work and grading homework and reading papers and showing up at additional events that were often requested of me. The job, and the duties associated with it, claimed my life.





As I said, I loved to complain about the state of affairs. And then one day, the husband of my friend EmilyPie pointed something out to me: I had a fairly awful habit of saying a certain word. And our department knew it. They gave me extra classes, requested me to pick up side jobs tutoring sons of friends of friends, and invited me to be the token foreign face at various events I really didn't have time for for one reason: because I said "YES." All. The. Time. I had the choice, B pointed out, to exorcise my right to negation. But I never did.





He also pointed out that this is really an inevitable part of my personality, and that as much as I may complain about being busy, the truth is that a) I do it to myself and b) on some level, I secretly like it being inconceivably busy.





Which officially makes me a masochist, by the way.





And guess what, I'm doing it again. When will I ever learn? Not a year ago I was taking three graduate seminars (the maximum number of credits, and considered a VERY full load in my department), teaching two sections of freshman English, trying to prepare my comps portfolio and defense in order to graduate my master's, working at the campus Writing Center, and secretly (because outside work is a big no-no, despite the fact that our stipends are not enough to support a houseplant) working a full-time job in mortgage. Oh, and don't forget trying to conceive with the help of fertility drugs. And SWEARING that I would NEVER do it to myself again.





So what am I doing? Taking three seminars AGAIN, as well as an internship, working at the Writing Center, applying for multiple conferences, participating on a publication project for one of my professors, and acting as a co-president for the graduate association. This, by the way, would be enough to sink anyone WITHOUT having a five-week old infant. Who, as far as I'm concerned, could easily be three people's full-time jobs. Strike that--three people's full time LIVES. Luckily due to the scholarship I received this year I have the year free of teaching, because I'd either have to die or dropout.





What is wrong with me? I endlessly regret the choices I make when I overload myself. I put so much pressure on myself to live up to what I perceive are the expectations on me that I do things like, for example, return to school full time when my baby is SIX DAYS old.





This condition is by no means rare among academics. One of my professors, who is basically an up and coming rock star in my field AND has twin babies, put it best when he said that when we spread ourselves so thin, we don't feel good at anything: we feel like bad parents, bad spouses, bad students, bad teachers (add bad bloggers to that list).





I feel like a bad everything. I half-ass my homework, and my time with Squidge is half-assed because I'm usually worrying about how I half-assed my homework.





And I'm SO unbelievably TIRED.





Okay, enough of this depressing stuff. Five weeks down, eleven more to go in the semester. I can do it, right? I'm going to keep thinking so until life proves otherwise.